Things that go bump in the night

We were woken up at 3:30 this morning by an explosion. One of the bottles of elderflower champagne had gone off with a bang. Ian kicked me out of bed to go and depressurise the rest. Unfortunately, there was one bottle that I couldn't do anything about - the glass cider bottle. That one went bang at 8:00 this morning.

As you see, home brew is taking over my kitchen.
I really need the store room back in action.

You'd think the cap would have blown off before the bottle exploded, wouldn't you? Well, I did. Here's the windowsill on the other side of the room, about ten feet away:

Little bits of glass on the windowsill

There were tiny fragments like that all over the kitchen. I haven't finished cleaning up yet - I felt the need for a cup of tea.

Lesson: Don't put elderflower champagne in glass bottles, even if they did contain fizzy drinks before. You'd think I'd have learnt that by now, wouldn't you?

Nice weather for blackcurrants

All this rain has to be good for something and I'm pleased to report that I've found one very positive result. Earlier in the year - 17th April according to the date of the photo - I had noticed bees buzzing around the blackcurrant flowers...

... and now their hard work has borne fruit, literally.

There are huge blackcurrants

... growing in great abundance.

Even better, we had a few hours of sunshine the other day, enabling me to get out and pick a goodly harvest. I'd forgotten quite how many uses I'd found for blackcurrants last year. What I hadn't forgotten, though, was how good the wine was. There's still some of the jam left, the fruit cheese didn't keep well, I don't feel like ice cream in this weather, but that wine is now a fond and distant memory.

I didn't have very much of that wine after the great store room shelf collapse, but what there was I enjoyed very much. I can't remember how long I left it to mature - obviously not as much as a year - I think it was about six months, but that was enough. It didn't taste much like normal wine, i.e. wine made from grapes - funnily enough, it tasted of blackcurrants. Once I'd got used to the not-wine flavour and started to appreciate it for what it was, this wine went firmly on the More of that next year list.

I was pleased to find that I'd made fairly good notes on how I made the wine last year. My first colander-full of currants weighed 2 lb 10 oz, almost exactly the amount I used last year, and there were plenty more on the bushes. I went out to get a second colander full and ended up with 5 lb 11 oz - enough for two gallons of wine.

I picked the currants over to remove caterpillars, spiders and snail poo, but didn't bother topping and tailing them. They went into one of the nice new* buckets I bought from Jed at Aberystwyth Recycling Centre.

This is what nearly 6 lb of currants looks like in a 10 litre bucket.

If you start with elderflower champagne, as I did, you might be surprised to find out quite how much fruit you need for red wine, but trust me, it's worth it. On top of the fruit I added a kettleful of boiling water, hoping that would be enough to kill off any mould spores that had got in (some of the currants were mouldy on the bush, due to the wet weather. I didn't pick any of those, obviously, but some of the nearby ones may have had a dusting of spores). I then stirred in 2 kilos of sugar, mashed it all up with a potato masher, and topped up the bucket to nearly full. Finally I added some yeast from the bottom of a bottle of elderflower champagne that's still very much alive.

I thought it was a 10 litre bucket as it has 10L moulded into the bottom, but looking at the website now I see it says they're 12.5 litres. Oh well, if I've made more than two gallons (bearing in mind I'll lose some volume when I strain it off the fruit) then I'll have slightly lighter wine and extra bottle or two of it. It all went into the bucket on Wednesday, so I'll leave it until Sunday before straining into demijohns.

Just a note on the elderflower champagne, as I've mentioned it a couple of times. Last year I enthusiastically made lots of this, planning to keep some through to Christmas, at least. I also gave some away as wedding presents, which didn't go terribly well: Even after depressurising, one bottle exploded en route, making a sticky mess of the gift bag, hand made labels and card (sorry Tim and Sarah). Lesson: Just because a bottle looks like it's designed to take the pressure, don't assume it actually will!

I also found that I didn't like this drink so much as it aged. I really like it fresh and sweet, before all the sugar's been turned to alcohol. I've decided that this is a summer drink, and I'll make and drink it in summer. By Christmas time, the sloe wine is much more to my taste, anyway.

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* When I say new, I mean second hand. They come from Rachel's Dairy and these ones smell of strawberry and rhubarb conserve, even after lots of washing up. There are worse things to smell of.

666: The number of Herman the Danish pastry

I've found a recipe that's persuaded me to keep Herman a while longer. The Bara Brith was good, but not a deal breaker. A week or so ago I quite fancied some pastries and looking through recipes, learnt that Danish pastries are made with a yeast dough. That could be a winner.

I've now made these a couple of times. The first time I made pastry as for croissants, with all the folding and turning that involves. I probably didn't keep the dough cool enough, and maybe handled it too much, but there was no detectable flakiness in the end result. The second time I did it the easy way, with grated butter, and the result was better, if anything (though there were other variables). Here is the recipe:

For the dough

• 6 oz plain flour
• 6 oz butter
• 6 tblsp friendship cake starter

(OK it could be any number three times over, but I happened to use six of each)

For the filling

Whatever you like, really. I brushed the dough with beaten egg and sprinkled on some crushed almonds and pistachio nuts mixed with demerara sugar - not very much of any of those.

Method

Put the butter in the freezer for about half an hour before you start. Grate the butter into the flour. If you dip the butter into the flour this is easier. Mix in the starter using a cutting motion then bring the dough together with your hands, but try not to handle it too much. Put the dough in the fridge for half an hour or so.

I followed Delia's advice to let it come back to room temperature before rolling, but I'm not sure that's necessary. I notice she doesn't include it in the online recipe. Here we are, all ready to go:

Getting ready to make Danish pastries

There's the pastry in the black tub, beaten egg, nut and sugar mixture, lots of flour for rolling, rolling pin and, though you can't see it in the photo, between those two little handles is a cheese wire (of the kind that's ineffective against slugs) for cutting the pastries.

Here's the pastry rolled out into a big square...

... and here it is rolled up and sliced with the cheese wire.

I still had to cut the last bit with a knife, but the cheese wire made the whole business a lot less squashy.

I accidentally deleted the photo in between that showed you just how little filling I spread on this, so you'll just have to take my word for it that it wasn't very much. It was quite a lot less than the pot full in the top photo because I saved some to sprinkle on top, stuck down with more of the beaten egg.

Here they are all laid out on baking trays.

Leave to rise for half an hour. Actually, I'm not convinced that they did rise during that time. Maybe it's because they were rolled up. I wonder if it might be a better idea to leave the pastry to rise before rolling it up? Anyway, cook at gas mark 6/200C/400F for not very long. About 15 min I think, or maybe not that long. You could probably get away with having the oven a little cooler too, whatever Delia says, but then you'd have to leave them a little longer. Take out when they smell cooked.

As you can see, the second trayful may have been cooked for slightly longer than strictly necessary, but they were still delicious.

More sourdough

One of my experiments with Herman the German friendship cake starter was an attempt to convert some of it to sourdough starter for bread. I extracted a small amount, mixed with a little bread dough and some water, then "refreshed" it (discard some and feed with flour and water) at intervals. It didn't look nearly as lively as its parent, kept separating, and tasted very, very sour - so much so that I didn't want to bake with it. After a week or so I gave up and threw it away.

In response to my questions about this on the 'ish forum, the lovely SusieGee offered me some of her sourdough starter. Just over a week ago I took her up on that offer and she not only gave me a pot of gloop, but very kindly photocopied extensive information on how to look after and cook with the starter.

The first thing I noticed about the gloop was that it was sluggish (compared with Herman), separating, and very sour. So that's normal for sourdough starter - I probably needn't have thrown out my first attempt, then. I have to admit to skimming off the clear, sour liquid that keeps rising to the top. I don't care how many experts tell me it's fine, just stir it in - I do not want that much alcohol/vinegar in my bread, thank you.

My next confession is that I looked at all the instructions and thought, No. Apparently cooking a sourdough loaf requires 6-8 hours of kneading, rising and knocking back at frequent intervals. I've heard people rave about how nice sourdough bread is. If that's what it takes to make it, I'm sure the result has far more to do with the rising and kneading than with the type of yeast that's used.

I'm not interested in perfecting a gourmet loaf - fresh baked bread is pretty good to start with - I just like the idea of keeping a yeast culture alive rather than having to buy fresh all the time. I decided to use much the same method as I usually use for slow-rise bread, just substituting sourdough starter for the yeast:

To one pound of flour add a teaspoon of salt, about 5 fl oz (one small cup) of starter and enough water to make a fairly wet dough. Mix thoroughly and leave overnight (I do this bit just before going to bed). At the same time, feed the starter with roughly equal quantities of flour and water to replace what you've taken out, plus a little more because the yeast does consume its food. Next morning, knead in a bit more flour, put into a loaf tin and leave for a couple of hours to rise. In fact, it rose so quickly that I knocked it back after one hour and gave it another hour to rise again. Cook at gas mark 6 (200 C; 400 F) for about 45 min.

I tried wholemeal bread first, thinking the stronger flavour of the flour would help disguise any sourness. The result was a revelation!

Wholemeal sourdough bread

The loaf rose much more than it usually does with fresh yeast and the texture was lighter and softer, which I guess is what you'd expect with more rising. There was a slightly sour tang, but we both liked it. A second wholemeal loaf was just as good, and today I tried white.

White sourdough bread. How boring are my bread photos?!

This wasn't as dramatically different from my usual white bread, because that usually rises more than the wholemeal. I didn't notice much of a sour taste, either. Maybe I'm just getting used to it or maybe, with a couple of refreshes and repeated skimming, the starter is getting less sour. Either way, this is excellent bread.

In other sourdough news, I think I've found the killer app for Herman...

Realizing Dad was right

Back in my old life, I had the persistent, nagging feeling of not being able to keep up with my own life. For the first year or so after moving, that feeling left me, but it's back. When I think about it, it's been back since the installation of the new heating (that link gives the most recent post first. Scroll down if you want to read the whole saga).

That project nearly killed me, and it isn't finished yet. After the ridiculously intensive work of replacing all the floors in the house and the joy of finally having our new heating installed and working, we still had the job of insulating under the floors. Since the heating was connected up from below, the insulation had to be added after that, and from below. I really struggled with that job (I'll tell you about it someday) and when I got back from helping Dad with his house in Cornwall, I just couldn't face it any more. It still isn't finished.

As well as the insulation, I still have the solar panels to do before the heating project's finished. These have been hanging over me, making me feel guilty about doing other things. We've also had crazy/miserable weather this year (I expect you have, too) which has made gardening less attractive, so I've been feeling guilty about not doing that as well. The end result is that I sit around feeling guilty and don't get anything done.

I've always found to-do lists oppressive, with the items I haven't crossed off hanging around for months and making me feel guilty. Since I'm already feeling so guilty, and with so many things filling my head, I felt the need to write it all down, if only to show Ian why I'm feeling so stressed. I did this last week and now I'm going to show you as well.

1. String up peas
2. sow more peas, and beans, and replacement carrots, and fennel, and broccoli
3. plant out French beans
4. pot on tomatoes
5. clear ash out of tapped bucket (missing trowel) and start making comfrey tea
6. improve slug defences for brassicas and strawberries
7. inspect and register septic tank
8. unblock kitchen drain
9. arrange book club meeting (choose book)
10. finish camera bag (find suitable washers)
11. seal bathroom floor
12. paint kitchen cupboard doors
13. add decoration to kitchen cupboards
14. clear, level and lay kitchen floor
15. ditto hall floor (edging strips)
16. brick arch over fireplace (get more bricks)
17. strip rest of wallpaper
18. plaster around fireplace
19. remove radiator
20. paint sitting room walls
21. empty room, lift carpet, sand and polish floor
22. clean up beam
23. make and install solar panels
24. finish insulation and ceiling in store room
25. loft insulation
26. rig up doorbell
27. put cupboards/shelves in store room
28. renovate boots
29. harvest oak leaves; make cordial and wine (get more buckets)
30. ditto elderflowers
31. sorrel cordial?
32. pull up rest of horsetail for plant food/blight treatment
33. paint dresser
34. finish making laundry basket
35. mend laundry bag
36. mend trousers and skirts (mine and Ian’s)
37. make new woodstore roof
38. weave bench seat from leylandii offcuts
39. treat wooden chairs for outdoor use
40. put extra shelf in airing cupboard
41. finish plastic bag sandals
42. take lavender cuttings
43. replace tent poles
44. clear out fridge
45. book musician for September
46. ?confirm booking for October (enquire about other buildings)
47. book musician for November
48. rewrite music website in nice tidy code
49. tidy up archive
50. publicity for July music
51. collect wild garlic seeds when ready and sow
52. ditto pak choi, cabbage, probably onion and parsnip too
53. write blog posts
54. find out about greenhouse for sale; ?dismantle, move and assemble
55. make press for sawdust briquettes
56. make solar dehydrator
57. get sawdust; make briquettes
58. fix spare room skirting boards
59. bedroom ceiling
60. fix cornices
61. paint wardrobe
62. fix wardrobe
63. strip/paint bedroom walls
64. fix kitchen cupboard door
65. learn Welsh
66. plan and prepare dinner EVERY DAY
67. WASH UP!

The immediate result of me writing the list was my own reaction: I can't do all that! This is what Dad said to me last year when I was worrying about the garden: You don't have to do everything all at once. He was right, of course.

I have decided to give myself a break over the garden. The weather's lousy this year and the slugs are rampant, so maybe I should just accept that this is going to be a bad year for gardening. Then I can stop worrying about it and focus on the house instead. In terms of saving money, getting the solar panels and insulation done will probably be worth more than growing veggies, anyway.

Having decided not to worry about the garden, I then found it a lot easier to focus on other jobs (helped by Ian's desire to get those jobs done). The kitchen is looking a lot better than in was when I wrote that list, even though I didn't quite manage to get the floor laid before the in-laws came to visit.

They're ganging up on me

Yesterday evening I went out to evict some slugs and snails.

This job is so much easier with gloves!

The trouble is, the best time to find these beasties is also the favourite hunting time of these beasties:

Photo courtesy of Harry Hogg, used with permission. This image must not be used or copied without prior permission from Harry Hogg.
My photography is nowhere near good enough to take a photo like this, so I borrowed this one. Click the image to see the original

I can't spend long outside before they eat me alive.

They're so itchy!

The itchiness woke me up at six o'clock this morning, which is a good two hours before I'd usually wake up. It's a beautiful day so I got up thinking I might go out into the garden, but the midges are just as bad in the early morning as they are in the evening. Grrr!

What I need is one of these:

A culinary cultural exchange: Herman the German bara brith

This is my absolute final experiment with Herman the German friendship cake starter. After several cakes that came out less well than the equivalent with baking powder I was ready to give up. Then my neighbour suggested bara brith, being a traditional Welsh yeast-leavened cake, so I gave it one last go.

I looked at several recipes before settling on Delia's as a basis. I was surprised that she didn't soak the fruit in tea first, as I thought that was a defining feature of bara brith. I soaked my fruit.

I made a couple of other changes to the recipe, to accommodate the starter. I left out the milk and sugar, because both of these are in the starter, and the egg, because starter seems to have much the same effect as egg in recipes I've tried so far. Here's the recipe I used.

Ingredients

• 12 oz flour, mixed wholemeal and white (I might try just white next time)
• 2 oz butter
• 10 fl oz friendship cake starter, having fed it the day before
• 8 oz mixed dried fruit soaked in...
• 400 ml strong tea (made with 2 teabags) There was quite a lot left over from this. I might try one bag in 300ml next time
• 1/2 tsp each of salt and mixed spice

Method

• Make up the tea and soak the fruit. I added the fruit while the tea was still hot and left overnight, but I think half an hour would probably have been enough.
• Mix the salt and spice into the flour, then rub in the butter.
• Stir in the starter, then enough of the tea to make a dough and knead. I made quite a soft dough, which wasn't such a good idea in retrospect.
• At this point I ignored the instruction to leave the dough to rise, as the starter's already had plenty of time to work on its flour and I didn't want the tough chewiness I'd found in previous cakes.
• Mix in the fruit. I had trouble with the instruction to knead it in gradually. By the time I'd added a few spoonfuls, it had broken through the other side of the dough and was squishing all over the work surface. Mixing it in the bowl was much more successful. However, since the fruit had been soaked, it brought a lot of liquid with it and made a very sticky mixture. That said, it looked more like cake mix than bread dough, which I thought was probably no bad thing.
• Leave to rise. Delia says 30-45 min, but mine took four hours, and it wasn't particularly cold, either. Maybe I should have given it some rising time earlier.
• Bake. Delia says gas mark 5 for an hour. Mine took an hour and a half, and I wasn't entirely sure the middle was cooked when I'd finished, but the outside certainly was.

German friendship bara brith

When we first tried it, still warm from the oven, the centre seemed undercooked, but it turned out that that was just because of the steam from cooking. When it cooled down it was fine - just the right texture. Obviously the top was a bit burnt, probably because I didn't cover it whilst cooking, but otherwise this is very nice. I finally have a successful German friendship cake recipe, and it's Welsh!

Unfortunately, Ian still doesn't like fruit cake (though he did eat a whole slice of this to test it, so it can't be that bad), so I still haven't solved the problem of what to do with Herman. Much as I like bara brith, I'm not sure I could manage a whole loaf of it to myself, every five days. Maybe I could slow Herman down a bit. I'll tell you a secret: In spite of what the instructions say, putting Herman in the fridge doesn't kill him, it just slows him down a bit. It doesn't even slow him down all that much, in my experience, but maybe that could reduce the bara brith frequency to a rate I could keep up with.

Copper wire as slug deterrent: a test

Amongst many things that are supposed to deter slugs, a strand of copper wire allegedly gives them an electric shock when they try to cross it. I was chatting to Dad yesterday and he mentioned this, suggesting that two strands might be necessary to make a circuit. Slugs are currently munching their way through our strawberries and the pots are quite hard to defend by other methods, so I thought this would be worth a go.

I took a bundle of electrical wire from the old washing machine and stripped a length, which turned out to be stranded. That should be ideal.



I took the strands out to the patio and started stringing them round the strawberry pots when I thought that it might be an idea to test the theory first. It shouldn't be too difficult - I'd just need to find a slug.

It took me about ten seconds to find this big boy hiding in some leaves...


... but he was sleepy and couldn't be persuaded to go anywhere. It didn't take much longer to find this little guy...



... who was much more sprightly. I put him on the patio in a circle of copper wire (several strands) and waited.

The first encounter with the wire was encouraging. When his antenna touched it, he withdrew and turned away.



After a couple of attempts, though, he braced himself and slid straight across.



Test result: Copper wire completely ineffective as a slug deterrent, at least against this slug.

Things living in my kitchen

And when I say Things, I mean yeast.


I have bread dough rising...


... the dandelion wine is still bubbling away merrily, and in that bowl is living Herman the German friendship cake starter.

Some friends came to visit a few weeks ago and brought me some friendship cake starter along with a finished cake. I have to say, the cake was very nice but as one of the friends said (that is, she brought me the cake and starter, he made the comment): You take some of that, mix it with all the ingredients to make a cake, then you have a cake. When I saw the recipe, I had to agree. The starter didn't seem to make a very big contribution to the finished cake. The recipe even includes baking powder, for goodness sake!

There was another problem with Herman. Although I liked the cake very much, it's a fruit cake and with the exception of applesauce cake*, Ian doesn't like fruit in cakes. Luckily, there are lots of recipes available to use with Herman (all including baking powder, which I refuse to use in a yeast cake recipe) so I had plenty of scope for trying alternatives.

Before I could get near baking a cake, though, I had to follow the instructions for nurturing Herman. Although I'm not used to measuring dry ingredients by volume, I do have an American cup measure, so I used that to measure out the first feed, and was struck by just how much flour, sugar and milk I was putting in. This is one hungry cake! Of course, with the increased volume he quickly escaped the one-litre pot I had him in. I decided that these quantities were ridiculous (the cake our friends brought was huge, too) so scaled down to my smallest cup, which is 5 fl oz, as opposed to the American 8 fl oz cups. Even with reduced quantities, he escapes fairly often. After I took the picture above, I stirred and took another photo so you can see just how much of that volume is air.


Herman takes up far less space when the air is stirred out.

My first experiment in cooking with Herman was scones. I reasoned that these are pretty close to bread anyway, but enriched with milk and sugar, so should work quite well with the starter. I was wrong. The result wasn't at all like a crumbly scone, but rather chewy. Scone fail.

I continued feeding Herman at appropriate intervals, but instead of the standard ten day cycle which ends up four portions, I baked every four or five days, using half the mixture each time. Remembering my mother's experience with German friendship cake when I was a child, you can very quickly run out of friends if you give portions away every ten days!

My next experiment was chocolate cup cakes, which were quite good but a bit on the tough side. A similar result came from plain cup cakes - OK, but a bit chewy and not as nice as my usual recipe. I finally tried applesauce cake, as the only fruit cake Ian likes, and hopefully fairly close to the standard Herman recipe.


Attempt at applesauce cake.

Notice how the edges look ragged? Well I might not have greased the lining paper as well as it needed, but I have never met a cake that hung onto its paper so determinedly. Notice also how the middle looks rather dense? Well after one hour the cake had risen and a skewer came out clean, but it quickly fell back flat. Maybe if I'd cooked it for a lot longer it would have been OK, but this cake was seriously indigestible. To salvage the ingredients I mashed up the stodgy middle bit, added an egg (I only had one), some milk and a teaspoonful of bicarb, and cooked as cupcakes. These also got about an hour cooking (I tested after 20 min, they weren't done, then I spotted my neighbour in her garden and went over for a chat...) and looked very brown, but were quite nice.

At this point I'd had enough of Herman. My neighbour had expressed an interest, so I went over (yes, whilst cooking cup cakes) and asked if she'd like some starter, adding, In fact, would you like all of it, and do you know what you're letting yourself in for? Once I'd explained what German friendship cake involves, she decided she didn't want any after all. However, she did suggest bara brith as a likely recipe. This is a traditional Welsh cake - well, sweetish bread - with dried fruit. I'd only seen recipes with baking powder, but she had a traditional one using yeast. This isn't going to be the recipe that make German friendship cake suitable for Ian, but I like bara brith a lot, so I was persuaded to give Herman one more go.

As I type, there is a tin of bara brith mixture failing to rise in the kitchen. It's not a promising start...

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* This may seem odd to readers in America, but this style of cake isn't widely known over here. My sister told me about it, and she heard from a friend of hers who's married an American and moved to the States.

After the rain

This is rather old news, as it's nearly a week since we had a month's rain in 24 hours, but still...

When Rain in Wales makes the ten o'clock news, you know there's been a lot of rain.

Up here in the mountains, things weren't too bad. The stream running through next door's garden (and alongside ours) got a bit torrential...


This stream usually comes under the bridge as a gently babbling brook

... and I made a small dam on the driveway to direct the water into the drainage pipe.


This may not look like it's making much difference, but it reduced the ruts in the gravel a bit.

On Friday afternoon we went out to meet some friends but didn't get far before we met this:


There was quite a lot of wind as well as rain, the combination of which brought this tree down.

Actually that's sometime after we met it and the road is almost open again by this time. When we had to stop, we got out of the car and went to see if we could help move the tree. The only other people standing around turned out to have been in their car when the tree came down on top of them. It landed on their bonnet (what's that in American? It's the front bit) and their momentum kept them going right through the falling tree before they could stop. Although the car was undriveable and the windscreen was smashed (but still mostly in place), the people were completely unharmed, apart from the shock. Really quite remarkable.

We couldn't move the tree intact, so we broke off what we could and tidied up small bits while someone with a Land Rover and tow rope came and pulled the tree round, until the rope snapped. No-one had a chainsaw with them, but somebody did have a disc cutter, which he used on the larger branches. When most of those had been moved, the Land Rover drove through the remaining small branches to break them off, which is what you see in the photo. At about this point someone said, Has anyone called the police? Well, I hadn't thought to. A few minutes later we heard sirens, so someone obviously had. By that time we'd just about got the road open again, though the police car managed to park in the most unhelpful place and blocked the traffic again. We left as the fire service turned up to finish clearing the tree away. By this time we were soaked, so we abandoned our journey and went home to change.

We ventured out again later and the journey was far less eventful, at least on the way out. It continued to rain heavily all evening and the journey back was frankly terrifying. There was a lot of standing water on the roads and hitting a very large puddle at 40 mph in the dark is no fun at all. Luckily we made it home, because it wasn't long before that road was completely closed.

When things had all calmed down the next day we went out again to have a look at the floods. As we approached Aberystwyth we could see a lot of water in the valley...



... and from closer to town we could see what had happened to the caravan park near the river.



We didn't go down into the town, but I've pinched this picture that a friend posted on facebook (cheers, Sarah ;)


Not many people at the supermarket today

After that we went inland, over the mountain road, to see the reservoir dams. We didn't get that far, though, because on the way we met this:


Range Rover stuck in landslide.

OK, we'd ignored the Road closed signs too, but when we got to a landslide we stopped and had a look at it before deciding whether to drive through it or not (not). We spent some time helping to dig them out, then someone turned up in a Land Rover with a tow rope (not the same person as the one who helped with the tree) who by some very skillful driving managed to pull them out. On the way back we stopped to chat with some locals (spotted earlier with a shovel, clearing a smaller slippage) and had a good laugh about tourists who think they can drive through anything if they have a good enough vehicle.

For those of us high and dry in the mountains it was all rather exciting. Would it be very wrong to feel pleased that I got my leeks in just before the rain?